- Letters: R/DGINOW
- Words: 55
- Points: 297
- Pangrams: 3
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The table provides clues for the roots of words in today's NY Times Spelling Bee. You're responsible for prefixes, suffixes,
tense changes, plurals, doubling consonants before suffixes, and alternate spellings of roots. An exception:
since Sam won't allow S, when the root contains an S, the clue may be for a plural or suffixed form. "Mice" for example.
If a clue isn't self-explanatory, try googling it. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here |
Today's puzzle
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Table content
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| answers covered | answer's first letter | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | D | 5 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 1 | D | 4 | Room or bldg. entrance |
| 1 | D | 5 | Star Wars robot (R2D2, C3PO, BB–8), or last syllable of Google phone OS (An…) |
| 1 | D | 7 | Make a continuous low humming sound, verb; or male bee, noun; or flying gadget that can carry a camera or a bomb, noun |
| 2 | D | 5,8 | Die because of trying to breathe water, gerund form is a pangram |
| 2 | G | 4,7 | Encircle with a belt |
| 1 | G | 6 | Blood that has been shed, especially as a result of violence, noun; or pierce or stab with a horn or tusk, verb |
| 1 | G | 7 | A narrow valley, usually with steep rocky walls noun; or eat way too much, verb |
| 1 | G | 6 | 3 Greek sisters with snakes for hair & petrifying gazes |
| 1 | G | 4 | Network of lines that cross each other to form a series of squares or rectangles (@the…kid) |
| 1 | G | 8 | Football field, compound |
| 2 | G | 4,8 | Smile broadly, verb/noun |
| 2 | G | 5,8 | Crush something into fine particles or powder, verb; or long, hard work, noun (the daily …) |
| 1 | G | 4 | Watered-down (nautical) rum |
| 1 | G | 5 | Area of your hip between your abdomen & thigh (I pulled my … playing football) |
| 3 | G | 4,5,7 | Get bigger (kid, plant), one of its noun forms is a pangram |
| 1 | I | 7 | Get bigger (kid, plant), one of its noun forms is a pangram |
| 1 | I | 8 | Pay no attention to someone or something |
| 1 | I | 6 | Not outside |
| 2 | I | 4,7 | Element Fe (atomic number 26), or hot clothes presser, noun/verb |
| 1 | I | 8 | Tree that is exceptionally hard, usually so dense that it sinks in water, compound |
| 1 | N | 6 | Sushi consisting of a small ball of rice smeared with wasabi sauce and topped with raw fish or other seafood |
| 1 | N | 4 | “Black” in French; or dark mystery genre (film …) |
| 1 | N | 7 | A sequence of letters that doesn't exist in any language |
| 1 | N | 4 | Edible seaweed, eaten either fresh or dried in sheets |
| 1 | O | 4 | Bad smell (body …) |
| 1 | O | 6 | Point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived; noun (the adj. “natant” is Latin in …) |
| 1 | R | 7 | Make free of something unwanted or troublesome (get … of that spoiled food) |
| 1 | R | 6 | Sit on and control the movement of an animal, especially a horse; or travel in a car driven by someone else, verb |
| 1 | R | 7 | Long narrow hilltop, noun; or form into narrow raised bands, verb |
| 1 | R | 7 | Make a boat ready for sailing by providing it with sails and rope (gerund form can also be a noun); or an apparatus for drilling or pumping oil |
| 1 | R | 5 | Not flexible |
| 1 | R | 5 | Thoroughness or stiffness (… mortis) |
| 1 | R | 4 | Tough outer skin of certain fruit, especially citrus |
| 2 | R | 4,7 | Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun |
| 1 | R | 5 | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 1 | R | 4 | Large crucifix above altar, anagram of bldg. entrance |
| 1 | R | 6 | People or things in a more or less straight line, for example seats in a theater or stadium, noun; or use oars to move a boat, verb |
| 1 | W | 4 | What you do with clothes, verb; or the result of a lot of that, noun (… and tear) |
| 1 | W | 6 | Metal strand, usually wrapped in insulation, for conducting electricity, noun/verb |
| 2 | W | 4,7 | Sentence component, letter combo with meaning, term I usually use here in place of “term", concept with which Spelling Bee players are obsessed, noun/verb, adverb and gerund forms are pangrams |
| 2 | W | 5,8 | What you do to a mop to remove the excess water (… out); or what some do with their hands when anxious |
| 2 | W | 5,8 | Opposite of right |
| 1 | W | 10 | Bad behavior, including illegal, unethical, and immoral actions, compound pangram |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It follows in Kevin Davis' footsteps. The original set of 4,500 clues came from him, and they still make up about three quarters of the current clue set.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. As logophiles, we are pretty good at putting on prefixes and suffixes, changing tense, and forming plurals (including Latin plurals!). The clues cover root words, arranged alphabetically by root word, with a count of words in the puzzle that come from each root. For example, if a puzzle includes ROAM and ROAMING, there will be a clue for ROAM and a count of 2. The root may not appear in the puzzle at all; for example, the 2021-07-23 Bee included ICED, DEICE, and DEICED. For such a puzzle, the clue would be for ICE with a word count of 3.
The Bee Roots approach involves judgement sometimes. For example, if a puzzle includes LOVE, LOVED, and LOVELY, how many roots are needed to cover them? LOVE and LOVED share the root LOVE, certainly, but LOVELY is tricky. LOVE is part of its etymology, but by now, the word means "exquisitely beautiful," which is a lot farther from the meaning of LOVE than swithcing to past tense. I'm inclined to treat LOVE and LOVELY as separate roots. You may not agree, which is fine. Another thing we logophiles share is a LOVE of arguing about words on social media.
A few words can have one meaning as a suffixed form and another as a stand-alone word. EVENING, for example. In those cases I will use the meaning that I think is more common.
One last complication, until another one pops up: a few roots have multiple spellings, for example LOLLYGAG and LALLYGAG. Depending on the day's letters, and maybe even the editor's whims, one or both could be in the puzzle's answer list. With such roots, you could see a word count of 2, even if there are no applicable prefixes or suffixes.
I will do my best to keep this site up to date and helpful (I hope). Check it out, and tweet feedback to @donswartwout Tweet to @donswartwout